Catching Some Z's

In his introduction to Meet Generation Z: Understanding and Reaching the New Post-Christian World (BakerBooks), James Emery White writes that Z’s “will be the most religious force in the West and the heart of the missional challenge facing the church.”

Like the baby boomers, Generation X, and millennials before them, Gen Z’s have their own ways of seeing the world—even if it is primarily through that little glowing screen. And, as always, parents and pastors must know their audience.

“We have to be students of the culture,” says Jim Burns, executive director of the HomeWord Center for Youth and Family at Azusa Pacific University. “We have to look at who and what is affecting their generation. And it’s complicated.” Read More

The research that I've read is that the human brain is not capable of "multitasking," that is, performing several tasks simultaneously. Rather it performs tasks in succession. What appears to be "multitasking" is actually switching back and forth between a cluster of tasks in rapid succession. This would suggest that Genertion Z is simply adept at rapidly switching from task to task. No one to my knowledge has studied this phenomena in depth ( and I don't claim to be up on the latest research) but it would raise questions as whether each task receives the so-called "multi-tasker"'s fullest attention. Considering the number of Generation Z students at my university who come very close to colliding with me because they were so absorbed in that little glowing screen in the palm of their hand while they walked across campus and the handful who have collided with me, I apt to wonder.

Another question which may purely academic is how well does this generation cope when they do not have access to their smart phones, tablets, and laptops?